EP REVIEW: NEON HEART – OUT OF MY HANDS

A little more than ten years ago Magic Dirt asked us, “What are rockstars doing today?” And if you were to ask Sydney quintet, Neon Heart and their contemporaries, The Lazys the answer would be writing and recording high octane EPs. Both are self-proclaimed rock ‘n’ roll bands that make no excuses for their energetic, straight-up rock. Out Of My Hands is the sophomore EP from Neon Heart, the follow-up to their eponymous debut. Produced by Evan McHugh, this five-piece guitar band would happily slot alongside other artists the former has worked with, most notably Jet and The Vines. The five-tracks offered here see these angry, young men kick up a storm with killer riffs and vocal hooks that leave the listener in a blaze of dust and destruction. It’s basically all youthful hedonism, partying, hell and fury.

‘Wildfire’ is a number very much inspired by AC/DC. As singer,Ben Nasremembers his “dirty girl” you could almost imagine Angus Young in the background pulling out the craziest theatrics in his uniform (of course). The music in this song is so darned incendiary and hell-bent on doing some rather serious damage with its machine gun-like artillery.

The following, ‘Ready Aim Fire’ builds on the previous flames with a powerful call to arms and at first I thought about the image of someone staring down the barrel of a gun. Except that this track is so catchy it’d be more like that gun-totting Texan on The Simpsons. Remember him? He’s always half-dancing with his pieces up in the air because that’s where his arms are at and he’s having that much fun!

‘Tonight’ begins ever so softly and is full of tender sentiments. It is nice to hear lyrics like: “Baby, it could be just you and me”. These certainly don’t detract from Nas and partner being joined by the big, loud band at the 1:45 minute mark.

For my money, ‘Psycho Ex-Girlfriend From Hell’ is the best song, even if on paper a Glenn Close/Bunny Boiler-inspired number doesn’t sound all that successful. But it’s so exuberant and catchy with it’s hand-clapping bop and driving, crunchy guitars that it’s easy to remember why you fell in love with that toxic person in the first place. It’s fair to say it’s quite relatable too, because trust me, we’ve all been there.

In short, Out Of My Hands is an energetic and furious fireball of raw rock. Consider it to be all about black t-shirts, beer and dirty jeans. Yeah.